Precarious, Performative, Playful, Potential...Perspectives!

Hey guys, this is just a site I came across and I'm wondering what you guys think about it? At first I was struck by the image and then I started reading about the description of this program:

"The mission of the "In Your Footsteps" organization is to unite the disabled community as a family and to have those who aren't as comfortable with their disability more comfortable by providing them with a mentor they can relate to and educate them on disability culture and history." (http://www.inyourfootsteps.org/

A world has been created in which people are uncomfortable being themselves. This is not only a thought I have on a person who is not "normal", because I do not believe that anyone is normal. Even those who seem normal, I think, are trying to fit a norm rather than being who they are and what they want to do and be etc. Often times I also feel like people don't even realize that they are trying to be normal..it's just..what? The normal thing to do? 

Is there really such a thing as "normal"? Even in a smaller group which is, for example, consisting of all females...maybe each person is female in their own way? Just some thoughts...

I really enjoyed the videos and images we looked at in class last week. After Anne posted the link to "Britain's Missing Top Model" (the source of the photograph of the group of disabled women in pink dresses), I spent a little time surfing youtube and trying to get a feel for the show. The clip embedded in the website didn't play on my computer, but I found a promo for the show (see link at bottom of post). A few things stood out for me. The contestant featured in this clip said, "We're disabled young women, but we're just normal young women at the same time." I was struck by her use of the word normal. In any context I find the word a bit disconcerting, as we discussed in class there are times when we want to be "normal" but others when we do not. In the context of this show I was even more disconcerted because it seemed to imply that for this group of women to be "normal" they needed to be models - to be spectacularly beautiful and sexualized in a way that is not "normal" for most women and doesn't necessarily seem good. It seems that instead of celebrating the people that these women are with their disability, the show asks the audience to see who they can be inspite of their disability. It seems that they are simply being objectified differently, the emphasis being shifted from their disability to their bodies as sex objects (This reaction strikes me as a bit extreme, but to some degree I think its true). I have similar issues with similar shows such as America's Next Top Model, which is not to say that I am above watching them!

Reading terminal market is a buzzing hotspot for locals and tourists to experience the intra-action of the stirring, culinary melting pot that is Philadelphia. I first traveled here on a date last spring and was pleasantly surprised to discover so many foods and beverages that I like easily and cheaply available. Chicken samosas, mango, banana, and pineapple smoothies, Italian hoagies, Thai fried rice… I could go on! Sitting in the food court, in the heart of the market, amidst the hustle and bustle of the crowds of families, couples, friends, tour groups, band troops, and others is quite an experience. 

After reading Culture as Disability, I began thinking about the ways in which spaces of “social interaction” are constructed to create accessibility and/or inaccessibility. I was quick to dismiss the intellectual exercise of thinking about the ways in which these spaces physically create accessibility or inaccessibility, but then realized the mere notion I would consider this a worthless exercise was part of the message of culture as disability that McDermott and Varenne enumerated.

I was in Reading Terminal Market yesterday with my mother, who was visiting me while on business in the area, and found myself observing many ways that the layout and design of the market made itself inaccessible to people with physical disabilities. I’ll flesh some of those thoughts out below, but first want to mention the people I observed who I lumped into this category. 

Since our last meeting, I have been thinking about the photo of the apparently “disabled” women from Britain’s Missing Top Model.  Specifically, I have been thinking about how my initial reaction to the photo, before reading the Clare book, was one of disgust; not at the women themselves but for the fact that they we being exploited.  Later, as I read the Clare piece, I began to feel ashamed of myself for that initial reaction.  I wouldn’t have looked at a cheesy glamour shot of someone who was not visibly identifiable as disabled and felt such disgust or annoyance, and even if I had, I certainly wouldn’t have voiced it.  However, the fact that I was looking at women who were wheelchair bound or missing limbs was enough to make me forget that I have no right to dictate what is or isn’t appropriate for another person.  Once I had worked through Clare’s book, and our discussion of it, I began to wonder if maybe I hadn’t been guilty of infantilizing these women and expecting them to be a-sexual, simply because they appeared to fit the model for disability.

I've been thinking more about what rachelr said in her post and what we discussed in class about the repetitive nature of Eli Clare's book.  I remembered an experience I had that helped me better understand the Clare's repitition, so I will share it in the hope that whoever reads it might gain something from it.

Last summer, I interned with a judge who worked with both civil and criminal cases.  One of the cases I got to sit in on had been brought by a deaf woman.  In court, when a questioning attorney asks a question, the witness is supposed to just answer that question, not add anything else.  But whenever this woman was asked a question about what had happened, she not only answered the question; she went on at great length about other details until the judge inevitably cut her off.  It was strange and somewhat frustrating.  I had trouble understanding why she kept over-answering after both attorneys and the judge asked her to stop.

I was struck by Professor Grobstein's affirmation of Varenne and McDermott's theory that, "cultures provide individuals with a sense of motivation and achievement." This cross-cultural norm, however, has created a disabling effect in cultures "by setting standards of achievement which... [people] can't adequately satisfy."

Professor Grobstein acknowledges this continual practice of cultural disablement and then moves on to suggest what it would be like to create a "non-disabling culture." My first reaction to a non-disabling culture, at least an American culture that actively works to promote enablement and agency was, was that it was an absurd idea. Of course, it's not that I don't think that it would be splendid to live in union and identify with others based on the skills and abilities they do possess, but that I feel we, as humans, are so trained to identify what is different from us.

We spoke last class, when looking at the image of the women in pink dresses, of the voyeur, indentifiying and analyzing difference. I feel this act of voyeruism and practice of being the voyeur is so much a part of the unconscious shared human experience that to promote an abling culture that doesn't point out or identify difference would be near impossible.

Within Eli Clare's own book Exile and Pride he speaks of feeling at odds within his own crip community. He references he feelings of not being crippled enough, not being wheelchair bound or without sight.

“…No group stands alone, nor even in a simple relation to more dominant other groups, but always in relation to the wider system of which all groups, dominant and minority, are a part.”

McDermott and Varenne describe culture as a set of collective norms rather than individual behaviors. Since our last class, I’ve been thinking about what is “normal” – the authors describe assumption that culture is universal as fundamentally flawed because that results in the perception that those who do not confine to those norms are missing something, in effect, “disabled.” The concept of “health” is defined as being “free from illness or injury,” and the origin of the word is related to “whole” – but then, most people are never “healthy” or “whole.” Is it “normal,” then, for the body to be “unhealthy” or not “whole?” Then why do shows like “Britain’s Missing Top Model” exist? Where do we draw the lines between which injuries/illnesses/disabilities are “normal” and which stray from the norm? Does it matter whether or not they are hidden, or how common they are? But then, how do we know how common they are if they are hidden? Normalcy is driven by perception, and, I would argue, in contrast to McDermott and Varenne’s arguments, these perceptions are individual rather than collective, based on one’s own experiences and diffracted upon their own world.

Last week I was reading some chapters from "Agendas, Alternatives, and Public policies" for my political science seminar and came across a passage that really resonated with me.  
"There is a difference between a condition and a problem. ...As one lobbyist said, 'if you only have four fingers on one hand, that's not a problem; that's a situation.' Conditions become defined as problems when we come to believe that we should do something about them. Problems are not simply the conditions or external events themselves; there is also a perceptual, interpretive element." (109).

Although the author is speaking specifically to the challenge of agenda setting in public policy, the sentiment stretches beyond his intended meaning. It fits nicely into the themes of this week's reading: culture as disability. The broad consensus (although they diverge on the particulars) between Grobstein, Varenne, and McDermott is that culture creates the confines within which certain characteristics or abilities are valued. It sets us up for cognition based on normative values. For example, one is born a certain sex (whether it is male, female, or intersex), and in the US, the condition of sex becomes a problem when the child is born intersex (i.e. as a culture, we decide something needs to be done to fix the child's sexual assignment). However, when looking at non-western cultures, for example India, intersex (Hijra) is accepted as a legitimate alternative to the dichotomous male/female binary.